Mumbai coastal road construction will be completed by July 2023 as project delayed due court case, Covid-19

The coastal road project will be completed by July 2023 instead of October 2022, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The delay is due to a

The coastal road project will be completed by July 2023 instead of October 2022, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The delay is due to a court-ordered stay in 2019 and the lockdown this year.

Coastal road construction is underway at Amarsons Park in Breach Candy, where BMC is also conducting geotechnical survey of the sea bed, as it is the site where coastal road interchanges are planne. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

Vijay Nighot, chief engineer of the coastal road project, said, “We lost eight months due to the court case that had stayed construction of the project in 2019, and we lost out on an additional six months due to the lockdown. However, during the lockdown, we did not completely stop construction work. So instead of October 2022, the work will be completed by July 2023.”

The 10.58km coastal road will connect Nariman Point to Bandra Worli Sea Link. Twin tunnels of 2.07km will connect Girgaum chowpatty and Malabar Hill. Each underground tunnel will have three lanes at a depth of 70 metres. The cost of the project is ₹8,429 crore, of which ₹1,300 crore have been spent till date.

At present, BMC has completed 20% of the construction, instead of the expected 30%. By December 2021, 55% of the work should be complete; and by December 2022, 85% of the work should be complete.

BMC is presently assembling the tunnel boring machine (TBM) at Priyadarshini Park in Malabar Hill.

Imported from China in May 2020 and assembled here, it is the country’s largest TBM, with a diameter of 12.9 metres. The cutter head (which digs through the ground) will be assembled in the coming week and boring work will start by the end of December.

A senior civic official said associated with the project said the first 600 metres of the tunnel on the Malabar Hill side requires digging through basalt rock that is five to six times the density of rocks generally used in construction projects.

“Then [after 600m] the rock gets weaker. So the TBM will be able to do six to eight metres of excavation per day,” said the officer. The tunnelling work will take approximately 18 months to complete.

Once the coastal road is completed, Mumbai will have an addition of 7.7km of a seafront pedestrian promenade, between Priyadarshini Park and Haji Ali, and Haji Ali and Worli, which will be 20 metres wide and accessible by 14 pedestrian underpasses. Nighot said, “Pedestrians will have to walk a maximum of 40 to 45 metres to access this seafront promenade.” BMC will reclaim a total of 111 hectares (ha) for the project, of which 65ha have been reclaimed so far.